Dick Van Dyke Quotes

I love to act and put on a show, but you're playing a character all the time. For music, it's really just me being myself.

An actor is someone who pretends to be somebody else. A movie star is somebody who pretends that somebody else is them.

As an actor, you are either emulating someone else, or some version of yourself.

I love acting and really taking on another person, another life.

I was Aladdin, and then I was Captain Von Trapp from 'Sound Of Music' when I was 7 or 8, and then King Arthur. I was always the lead. I've always enjoyed being onstage, acting obnoxious, being someone that wasn't me, hiding behind a character.

I enjoy all kinds of performances and take each role differently. I keep the audiences in mind.

The thing about the performance part... starting with improv and standup, you're starting with yourself as the character, and I don't feel as much like, 'Oh, I'm a vessel for -' I feel like someone who calls themselves an actor is a vessel.

I know acting is not impersonating, but I'm good with impressions. I can do impressions of people I know, and people I've been, and roles that I've acted before.

Pretending to be other people is my game and that to me is the essence of the whole business of acting.

I always think of the character as being me. But me wearing a 'coat', which may be a different way of speaking, moving or regarding other people. To me, acting is pretending, just like kids playing, only you pretend as if it were really, really real.

I'm an actor. I love to create.

I know what I love about acting - and it's the creative process.

You don't become the character.

I play grizzlys, but I'm not a grizzly. I'm a song-and-dance man.

Let me put it this way. There is more to acting than just acting like somebody. I like to act in such a way that other people get some notion of what it's like to be somebody.

I love acting. It's what I do, not what I am.

It's great to be an actor, and it's great to embody something more than who you are.

I find it easy to be myself as an actor.

I want to act, perform in my own way.

You're always trying to find common ground with whatever you do, but you want to not be thinking about yourself when you're performing a play. The job is getting yourself out of the way and letting the character go about the scenes.

Acting is a very weird job. But if you know you're an actor, you just have to do it. You can't do anything else.

I'm more comfortable doing a character than being myself.

If I were to play somebody who ran a fish and chip shop, I would not work in a fish and chip shop for three months. Staring at chips is not going to help me in my performance.

There's something about being any kind of entertainer that is acting. You have to put on a show. Things you wouldn't do in your life, you do on stage. You have to let go. And that's extra hard for rappers. We have a tendency to, quote unquote, keep it real. As an actor, you have to be able to humiliate yourself. Do whatever it takes.

A lot of times when you're acting, you're no longer talking and listening; you're going at it for your own self.